


pure science with a splash of black cat

by Kleenexwoman



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Chaos Magick, Comedy, Exhibitionism, F/F, Includes Supplemental Playlist, Recreational Drug Use, Semi-Public Sex, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:02:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7683787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/pseuds/Kleenexwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holtzmann hooks up with a vampire at a goth club and takes ghost drugs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Called Love, I Spell L-U-V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patty announces her intent to get her PhD; Kevin caught a fish.

It was fairly clear that the man in the bow tie and inexplicably purple sweater vest didn't need ghosts busted, nor was he poking unhappily at any of Holtzmann's half-finished innovations (although they had all come to a consensus that Erin was the only Ghostbuster allowed to deal with EPA agents). He seemed to be attached to Patty primarily, although Erin had become trapped in what Holtzmann had come to think of as the Gilbert Pulchitrude Proximity Orbit phenomenon. Holtzmann thought about introducing herself, but there were shrimp tacos that really needed to be eaten before they got cold, so she turned her attention to that project. 

Patty was definitely pointing at her. The man in the purple sweater vest held up his hand in a half-wave gesture that usually meant, "Hi, but no." Holtzmann wasn't sure whether it was the half-eaten taco or the Cherenkov blue glow of the pocket-sized particle accelerator she'd been tinkering with. That probably needed to be fixed. Idly, she fished a piece of shrimp out of the taco and dropped it into the acclerator. There was a flash of dazzling blue as the shrimp particles hyperaccelerated into nothingness. Interesting. 

"So that was Marcus." 

"Marcus?" 

"The big news I told you I had? Remember that?" Patty directed Holtzmann's attention out the window and onto the street. Marcus was hailing a cab. His scalp shone in the afternoon sunlight. 

"Does he wax his head?" Holtzmann mused. "That is a very high gloss." 

"That high gloss," Patty said, sounding mildly impatient, "is my boyfriend. For actual real this time. He treats me like a princess, but he also respects my mind. And he sounds like Cornel West in bed." 

"Ohhhh." Holtzmann said. "I thought you were going to tell us you were doing grad school." 

"You're going to graduate school, too?" Erin shrieked. She flew across the room. There was hugging. 

Patty disentangled herself. "I was only just thinking about it. How did you even know?" 

"There was an NYU catalogue of courses on Kevin's desk." 

"It could have been Kevin's." 

Holtzmann thought about it. "No." 

"Fair point." 

"Yeah, me, I'm too pretty for school," Kevin said. "They had to take me out of classes for it. Said nobody could pay attention when my hair was in the room." 

"Marcus seems to have found a solution to that problem," Holtzmann said. Erin elbowed her. 

"Doesn't matter," Kevin said. "My mother always told me, 'Kevin, with your brains and work ethic, you'll just have to marry rich.' And I might!" 

"Does that mean you'll stop working for us when you're married to a millionaire?" Erin looked distressed at the prospect. Holtzmann noted that Erin did not seem to consider the possibility of "Kevin does not marry a millionaire." 

"Oh, no, he's not exactly a millionaire. But he does all right." 

Holtzmann started on another shrimp taco. This was probably going to be good. 

"But..." Erin raised a finger. "How rich are we talking?" 

Kevin spun the computer monitor around. "Well, that's only a third of his name. So...about a third Rich?" He pointed to the single picture that was displayed on the screen. "That one's Rich." 

Holtzmann peered. Rich was roughly man-shaped, but about half a Kevin wide. He had hair. 

"Wow," Erin said. "So where did you meet...Rich?" 

"On, uh...A Lot of Fish Dot Com." Kevin pronounced each word with careful, equal emphasis. "Or was it All the Fish You Need? So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish? I Can't Believe It's Not Fish?" 

"I...didn't think you would ever need a dating website, Kevin." Erin was simpering. Holtzmann fished in the takeout bag for a Jarrito to settle her stomach. 

"Oh, I wasn't looking for a date. I was going on this all-cod diet, you see--did you know The Rock eats seventeen pounds of cod per day? Amazing!" 

"Hey," Holtzmann said to Patty, a little quieter than usual so Erin wouldn't be distracted from the combination of unrequited lust and cod-related disgust that she was now beaming at Kevin. "You know, you don't even need to go to grad school. You have three PhDs in ghostbusting right here, we can teach you everything. Erin even actually taught a class once. It was on string theory, but it might come in handy." 

"See, that's the thing," Patty said. "I am just as smart as you, and sometimes I think I am probably smarter. Is that supposed to be blue?" 

"According to the laws of physics, yes." 

"But I am the only one without extra letters after my name, and that does not need to keep being the case. So I'm gonna be getting a doctorate--" 

Holtzmann opened her mouth. Patty raised a finger. 

"In _history_. Because we have three nuclear scientists who do not fully understand the geopolitical consequences of the Manhattan Project in our ghost club, and I feel like I gotta balance that out." 

"I know that one," Holtzmann said. "Godzilla." 

"And this is why you need Patty." 

"Hey! Guys!" Abby's voice drifted up from the ground level. "I got a lot of classified stuff here we need to get inside, like right now. Where's Kevin?" 

"I have a robot arm that can lift up to six thousand pounds at a time," Holtzmann offered. She went to find the robot arm. "No, sorry, I have an _escaped_ robot arm that can lift six thousand pounds." 

"Escaped?" Erin looked like she was not having a good day at all. "How can a robot arm escape? Oh my God, Holtzmann, did you give it sentience?" 

"And the desire to kill. And _love_. And kill again." 

"Holtzy," Abby yelled, "why did you give the robot arm emotions?" 

"I wanted it to feel like it was doing a good job, and then I realized that it had to feel first, so..." Holtzmann shrugged. 

"That is not a good reason!" Abby had managed to make it upstairs, a shiny metal suitcase in tow. "Presents, presents. A Heisenberg-proof electron detector for Erin, some weird-smelling maps of Rhode Island for Patty, yellowcake uranium for Holtzmann, and an orgone generator for me." 

"Yellow cake?" Kevin became interested. "What kind of frosting?" 

"Kevin's dating a fish and Patty's getting a terminal Humanities degree," Holtzmann blurted out. 

Abby threw up her hands. "I leave for one minute and everything goes to hell."


	2. Sizzling Like an Isotope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone has lives outside of work except for Holtzmann.

Erin wound her scarf around her neck. It wasn't even cold out. She had a thing for layers, Holtzmann noted. "Case of the Sundays?" 

"Do any of you believe in weekends?" Erin asked. "Patty. Nine to five, labor laws?" 

"The MTA runs every day. Trying to get two whole days off in a row was like playing poker." Patty stuck the ghost shredder into her purse. "I'm out on a call anyway." 

"I thought you were having dinner with your uncle's family," Abby said. "I mean, that sounded nice. A home cooked meal and everything." Holtzmann counted three takeout containers from Zhu's in her waste basket. "I'd say I miss having dinner with my mom, but...I spent my childhood dodging pressure cooker shrapnel. It was informative, but, y'know. Shrapnel." 

"Okay," Patty said. "Well, I have signed a long-term contract with my uncle's funeral home, because do you know what gets a lot of fresh ghosts? A funeral home. And my auntie makes this grape salad, it's incredible, and she always sends me home with some. So I am looking forward to that. Peace out, ladies." Patty peaced out. 

"Where are you going, anyway?" Abby asked Erin. 

"Just out to a movie. One of my old TAs invited me out to see a screening of this old horror movie. _The Seventh Seal_. I figured I'd take a night off and enjoy some mindless entertainment." Erin shrugged. "We've been working nonstop for a while. I could use a break." 

A movie. That was the kind of thing you did, you asked someone out to a movie, or asked them to do anything. Coffee. Holtzmann had transcended coffee at some point and had ended up ordering a bag of caffeine crystals off some Silk Road site. Abby had mistaken them for Splenda. Holtzmann had gotten a chance to use the defibrillator.

"You know, I haven't seen a single horror movie since we started the Ghostbusters," Abby said. She paused, and thought about it. "I have the real thing to work with now," she said solemnly. 

"I spent half of our sleepovers like this." Erin slapped her hands over her eyes, then parted her fingers. One hazel eye appeared. "I was getting the real thing every night. And now..." She dropped her hands. "I even went to see that movie about the dybbuk, and I spent most of the movie going, 'Oh yeah, I could take him out.'" 

"I got one of those in Crown Heights the other day," Holtzmann said. 

"So you have a date," Abby said. "Get it, Erin!" 

"Not a 'get it' situation," Erin said. "Jessica's leaving for MIT, I wanted to congratulate her. She was one of the only people who cared when I was fired--I got e-mails from my old students, my TAs, and even the guy who stocked the vending machine outside my office. Nobody else." 

Students. Holtzmann thought about that. They hadn't had a lot of students at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science. Abby had kept a supply of chalk on hand to throw at students who had tried to come through the door. Maybe that was why. 

"Well, have fun." Abby turned her attention back to The Helmet, as Holtzmann had come to call it. 

"Shouldn't you guys take a break? Abby, what even is that?" 

"This is my weekend." Abby held up her screwdriver. "It's a side project. Telepathy helmet." 

"I can't believe you're still working on that," Erin and Holtzmann said, roughly at the same time. 

"No way, for that long?" Holtzmann giggled. 

"Look, just because you've never met an idea you couldn't weld together..." 

"I still haven't achieved cold fusion." 

"Yeah, but you got it down to lukewarm." Abby peered at The Helmet. "Do you think trepanning would work?" 

"I'd like to make a new rule for headquarters," Erin said, "that nobody can drill holes in their skull on the grounds." 

She left. Abby tinkered. Holtzmann soldered. It was peaceful. Sometimes she missed it being just her and Abby and occasionally Benny. With five permanent Ghostbusters, it was rarely quiet enough for her to hear the soothing hum of circuits working as they should. 

"Not her type of thing?" Holtzmann asked. 

"Trepanning? I could have told you that. Biofeedback isn't exactly Erin's specialty." 

"T and A named Jessica," Holtzmann said. She watched as Abby's expression went from blank to _ohh, I get it_ to that face people made when they were trying to feel sorry for you. "Got it." 

The sun went down. Abby opted for Korean takeout. Holtzmann ate bulgogi and put on a Rush album. 

"Hey," she said, "Abby. Abby. Abby. Whatcha doin'?" 

The helmet lay in a tangle of wires on Abby's workbench. Abby had stationed herself on an overstuffed armchair that she and Patty had pulled out of the trash (the Ghostbusters had funding coming out of their ears these days, but old, cheap habits die hard). Her attention was focused on a paperback that had previously been floating around Erin's "official" desk (Erin had one desk for work and one for business, Abby just had the one but it was very large and included a minifridge and a goldfish bowl, and everyone had eventually agreed that Holtzmann having an entire floor to herself in addition to the communal workspace was ultimately best. Patty's personal office was under construction and involved titanium plating on three walls). 

"Me and Erin used to pass these dumb supernatural romance books back and forth and make fun of them," Abby said, "but I think she was a loooot more into them than I was. If the Fabio guy was a vampire, the woman would always get bitten at the end. If he was a werewolf, he got cured. If he was a ghost, it was always time travel 'cause you can't date a dead person. But you know what they didn't have? Zombies." 

Holtzmann squinted at the cover of the book. "Nah, he's got bolts in his neck. Means he's a Frankenstein monster. So it's a girl slash monster thing, huh?" On the cover, a misshapen shambling corpse held a red-headed woman in its rotting arms. There was also someone in a waistcoat, brooding. He had hair. Holtzmann mentally ranked the hair as exceeding Kevin's on the Holtzmann-Gilbert Tonsorial Attractiveness Scale (which Erin did not know she was involved in creating yet). 

"Frankenstein?" Abby turned the cover over. "Huh, you're right. Which means Mariella here is going to fall in love with the scientist, I'm thinking." 

"I shall be with you on your wedding-night," Holtzmann quoted. "Wow. Edgy. So he carries her off, and they fall in love when she realizes he's just a peaceful li'l monster who never asked to be re-animated." 

"You are really rooting for the dead guy here," Abby said. "Anything you wanna tell me, Holtzy? Meet someone special at the morgue?" 

Holtzmann grinned. "Not recently." She plucked the book from Abby's fingers. "Hey. Abby. Abby. Abby." Abby didn't look particularly perturbed, so Holtzmann leaned in and kissed her. 

Abby let her. Holtzmann tried to deepen the kiss, lick along Abby's lips and into her mouth. It wasn't happening. Holtzmann pulled away. Abby looked mildly startled. 

"Uhm," Holtzmann said. Probably this had been a bad idea. 

"Okay," Abby said, "why now? We've been working together for almost a decade, you couldn't have planted one on me two years in when I was still doing the experimenting thing with...living bodies?" 

Holtzmann slid off the chair. "Heard that one before." 

Abby rolled her eyes. "With guys, too. Had to have a control group. And I took notes." 

"Of course. Conclusion?" 

"I like Zhu's cashew chicken a lot more than I like sex. And--" Abby held up a finger. "I enjoy Zhu's cashew chicken the normal amount. It is normal to eat the same thing three times a week." 

"So you're not in a committed relationship with Zhu's, is what you're saying." 

"I'm in a committed relationship with the exploration of the unknown. Insanely spicy takeout is my side piece." 

Holtzmann thought about that. Sex released endorphins. Capsaicin also released endorphins. It made sense. 

"Look, it's not like I don't like sex at all. It's...okay, but that's all it's ever been. And cuddling is nice. About soup level. If you're really that hard up, I could dig out the ol' Hitachi and..." 

"No, I--no. Sorry." Holtzmann's eyes were burning. That was stupid, she wasn't even disappointed. She briefly chided herself for jumping to conclusions. Abby had never expressed any real interest in men--one couldn't help admiring Kevin a little, though--but also, never in women. Holtzmann's theory had been that gay people from the Midwest were just a lot less obvious and dressed in the most boring way possible as camouflage. It had never seemed urgent to ask before. 

Abby's eyes widened. "Oh, shit, you're not actually in love with me? Are you?" 

"I just thought, nobody's ever shared a lab with me for as long as you have. And." Holtzmann hated saying things like this. There was always some kind of psychosomatic malfunction, a swelling esophagus or a twisting of the stomach. Right now, the disturbance was located near her diaphragm. "Also nobody's wanted to date me for more than a week. I thought it might work." 

"Oh god, honey." Abby hugged her. Holtzmann hugged her back and Abby didn't push her away. Abby was correct; cuddling was roughly as nice as soup. "I totally would if I even cared a little bit about having sex. I just don't, and I think if you were okay with that you probably wouldn't have kissed me." 

Romance was a no-go, then. That was fine. Well, it wasn't, it really sucked. But romance also hadn't treated Holtzmann very well in the past. There had been the little red-haired girl, who had moved away. Then there had been the somewhat older brown-haired girl, who had wanted to keep it secret and started dating a football player "to cover it up" but had actually just been dating the football player. College had been one stupid crush after the other, like clockwork, and coffee dates that never went very well. And nobody had time for sex in grad school. After that...her life had been too busy, too full of movement to get attached. And then she'd settled in with Abby. 

She needed a side project. Something that didn't have to do with ghosts. There were a lot of paranormal things out there that weren't ghosts that were just aching to be discovered. Branch out into smaller particles, put some cats in some boxes with some isotopes, see what happened. No, not a cat. They were too cute. Maybe something less sentient, like a cockroach.

"Hey, Abby," she said. "I'm gonna go out and catch some cockroaches."


	3. When the Demons Blur in Neon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holtzmann goes to a goth club.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to the soundtrack I made for [Apokalyptik](https://open.spotify.com/user/1290256027/playlist/5rNcGOG5cJuhunDhwKmVfS) on Spotify! Or [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM01miUIMI9Mxu8GLsqTuQ4W6HAdzYsNT) on Youtube!

Holtzmann showered and changed into her New York-at-night camouflage. Black leather jacket, black jeans, Joy Division T-shirt (she hated the band, but there wasn't any other way to get a T-shirt that had the radio waves of the first pulsar ever detected on it). Doc Martens. A few strategically placed spiky accessories. Homemade taser, highly illegal voltage. Also, she'd gotten kind of cyberpunk and rigged up a knife with an electrical charge on the blade, just to be safe. Gritty superhero origins tended to happen in New York. Maybe that could be her side thing. Erin had actual students who wanted to hang out with her (and Holtzmann suspected she was going to take up some kind of fiber-arts handicraft any day now, it just seemed like something Erin Gilbert would do). Abby explored the city in a never-ending search for five-alarm Asian food. Patty was well on her way to Having It All. Maybe Holtzmann could be The Electro Avenger. 

She said goodnight to Abby, who had fallen asleep in the chair. Holtzmann put a blanket over her and kissed her on the forehead. "Hey," she said into Abby's ear, "I'm really glad you're still my friend. Also, try to see if you can fly." Abby sort of wriggled her arms, so Holtzmann assumed it had gotten through. 

Greenwich Village seemed promising. Holtzmann went there. She browsed through a record store and found two Ministry records that she decided not to buy, petted a grumpy orange cat who was sleeping on a pile of cassettes, and scanned through the flyers taped to the front window. One was printed on bright green paper, and it caught her eye. The flyer said

SPEKTRAL DISKO 

at 

APOKALYPTIK 

SUNDAYS TIL SUNRISE 

with 

DJ NEKRO 

spinning 

GHOST TRANCE/HAUNTED HOUSE/DRUM AND BONES

ECTO COOLER SHOTS $3

Holtzmann memorized the address on the flyer. The names they gave music had gotten a lot weirder lately.

Apokalyptik didn't look crowded. Actually, it didn't look like anything at all except for some graffiti saying APOKALYPTIK over the side door of a seedy wedding cake of a hotel. The parking lot was nearly full and had a lot of shitty cars in it. She scanned the bumper stickers. MY OTHER CAR IS A HEARSE. She'd have to get one of those for ECTO-2, _in memoriam_. I'M SO GOTH I SACKED ROME. HONK IF YOU'RE DEAD. I (brain) ZOMBIES. Then there was a pickup truck with a gigantic Misfits skull painted on the door. That all seemed very, very right. 

The door opened, and Holtzmann heard the sweet sound of thumping bass. It reminded her of college, going across the river to Boston to hang out in a bar that smelled like piss so she could listen to the Smiths over a jukebox and pretend she was going to get up the nerve to talk to one of the cute girls that looked like vampires. Back when anyone had still called her Jillian. She'd probably have to let her girlfriend call her Jillian if she ever met anyone. Time to get used to that. 

The line wasn't long, nor was it unruly. People lounged against the wall and smoked cigarettes in open defiance of current New York health codes. Jillian dug that. She leaned against the wall and checked out the mural on the far wall, a cemetery where neon skeletons danced hand in hand among Day-Glo gravestones. Bright purple bats flew over the vista, silhouetted against a crescent moon. There was even a huge sheet stretched over one wall to make a movie screen. It was playing a Casper the Ghost cartoon, intercut with scribbly, eerie black-and-white patterns.

"Get your ghost drugs!" Jillian looked over peoples' shoulders to see who was yelling. The girl was short, stocky, and stacked, face framed by bobbed hair the color of dried blood and by the wide leather collar around her neck. She wore what looked like a pair of real vintage welding goggles over her forehead, like a headband. Miniskirt, knee socks, R. Crumb girl calves. It was a good look. 

"Come on, bitches, twenty bucks for a hit of ecto-sy. Made from real ghost jizz." She moved swiftly down the line, handing out sandwiched slips of paper and taking bills. "This is what you came for, only at Apokalyptik." Her voice crackled and sang like high-tension wires. "I don't have all night, gimme your fucking money before the FDA makes this shit illegal." 

The ghost drug girl stopped in front of Jillian. "Ghostbusters get freebies," she said. "Open up." 

Jillian licked her lips and slid out her tongue, touching the tip to her teeth with a flourish before opening wide. The girl dropped a slip of something green and translucent into her mouth. Jillian tasted something sweet and slightly minty, and then it began to tingle on her tongue like Pop Rocks. She felt the slip sublimate into a gaseous state in her mouth, and something cool and pleasant spread outwards from her sinuses. 

"Tell Cerberus up there you're with Roxy Sparks. Actually--" Roxy took Jillian's hand and led her to the front of the line. A few people looked up, but the murmuring behind them sounded positive. 

_"Is that..."_  
_"Naw, here?"_  
_"No way!"_  
_"Dude, be cool."_

Cerberus was large and only had one head. He wrote BOO! on her hand and waved her on. Roxy patted her on the cheek. "Catch up with ya." 

The world grew more layers. The marble floor, suddenly far more crowded, glowed with coruscating swirls of greenish blue that moved like water around peoples' ankles and trailed after them as they danced. Most of the dancers were spectral, whooshing through each other with barely a ripple. Flappers kicked up their heels in orbit around a clean-cut swing-dancing couple that kept spinning like a turbine. Men and women in tailored coats and button-up boots waltzed through flesh-and-blood clubgoers who were writhing slowly in time with the music. 

Blurry, disembodied eyes blinked and stared through the empty sockets of the peeling, painted-on skeletons. They swarmed the eyeholes like flies, some flitting quickly from skull to skull like bees. Even the dotted eyes of the bats had a few spectral _ojos_ hanging around. Holtzmann took off her green-tinted "I wear my sunglasses at night" spex. The colors of the mural suddenly got a lot more intense, but everything spectral looked exactly the same. That was interesting, did spectrally generated light defy filtering? She tucked the idea away for later. 

None of the ghosts seemed to be violent or malevolent. In fact, none of them even seemed to notice the living. She held her spex up to the blacklights above the dance floor and frowned. A few floating pairs of eyes had attached themselves to her goggles. "Shoo." Holtzmann batted them away with her free hand. They didn't move; their ectoplasmic forms didn't even seem to be disturbed. "Interesting," she murmured. "Really, really interesting." 

Some ghosts were more solid and visible than others, their ectoplasm-to-psychokinetic-energy ratio higher or lower. These barely seemed to have any presence in reality at all. So where was the dance-and-light show coming from? Just light? Or was there some other substance to a ghost, some kind of undiscovered particle that might even be invisible to the human eye under normal circumstances? A faint glimmer up in the rafters caught her eye. 

Holtzmann lowered her spex and peered towards the ceiling. Colored light splashed over her face, shockingly bright. Drifting onto the dance floor, she held up her hand to block out the shower of extremely low-strength laser beams and backed into a seemingly entangled couple. 

"Sorry," she muttered. A slim arm enclosed in a fishnetted glove wrapped itself around her waist, fingers splaying over her abdomen. Her gaze returned to the thing in the rafters. It was like a cloud, but then again it wasn't; it was like an amoeba, shifting and palpitating. 

Maybe her eyes were getting used to the darkness or maybe the tempo of the song changed. _We are the sum/The lifeblood of the city's lights/They need to glow._ She began to see faint helicate columns rising from the crowd, like cigarette smoke rising in a still room. The spectral slime mold seemed to be reaching out to snag the strongest columns.

"Hey, I called dibs on the hot Ghostbuster."

Roxy was right under her nose, peeling the hand away from where it had started to tease up the hem of her shirt. The couple drifted away. "I sold out my stock, so it's party time," she yelled; you had to yell, to be heard over the music. "You want a drink?" 

Deliberately, showily, Holtzmann pointed up. "Uh, you got an infestation." 

"Nah, that's just Lenny. He's our servitor." Roxy slid her arm around Holtzmann's waist and danced her closer to the wall. "He works here, just like I do. See?" 

This close up, Holtzmann could see that there were actual words on the gravestones. They'd looked like scribbles from afar. Roxy pointed to MADAME MOREAU -- PROPRIETOR and ROXY SPARKS -- APOTHECARIST and LENNY --, but instead of a job title there was a doodly little squiggle. Holtzmann reached over and tapped it. "What's that?" 

"They made him from a sigil when the club opened, which was like forty years ago. He's like one of those snails you keep in a fishtank so it doesn't get grody. Keeps the place chill. Nobody ever gets into fights here." 

Holtzmann marveled. Energetic symbiosis with an artificially constructed ectoplasmic entity? "That's amazing." 

"There's sigils all over the place in here, you just can't see all of 'em." Roxy waved her hand over the walls. "We even put sigils on the flyers!" She beamed. Laser lights sparkled off her teeth. "Keeps out the riffraff, sucks in the right crowd." 

"What is that, like a magic spell?" 

"Kind of. You ever read _Snow Crash_?" 

"Yeah!" The tempo changed again. It was a basic four-on-the-floor beat, faster and more repetitive than the last song. Holtzmann started to pogo. Roxy jumped up and down with her, arms up in the air. What had she been trying to figure out? Probably nothing that crucial. She could work on it when there wasn't a really hot girl bouncing right in front of her. "I love that book!" 

"I love this song! Dance with me!" Roxy held her hand out. Holtzmann grasped it. 

Wheels that had begun to spin around in her brain again (had been spinning for a long time) slowed, stopped, broke into pieces, and floated up into Lenny's amoebic grasp. It was like a clock had suddenly run down, like the past and future gently folding themselves into the wings as the present stretched itself over her body. Her hips moved with her heartbeat, pulling a steady, satisfying rhythm from someplace deep inside her blood and bones. She was riding her own skin like a passenger in a rollercoaster. 

_You're just a chemical, a holy fucking chemical_  
_It doesn't matter that you're self aware_  
_It's just so typical to be an individual_  
_So like a junkie to say you don't care_

_So shut up and enjoy the ride._ The words were spoken in the same unechoing voice she heard when she thought her own thoughts to herself. It surprised her; that was in itself surprising. Could you be surprised by your own thoughts? 

_Was_ it her own thoughts? 

"Hey, stay with me," Roxy said, and kissed her. Jillian tasted Roxy's lips and felt them open, explored the sweet and slightly minty softness of Roxy's mouth. 

They parted slowly. Jillian could almost feel something invisible stretching between them, a fiery thread tugging her back to Roxy's lips. She put both hands on the sides of Roxy's face and kissed her again. It felt like all of her questions had been answered, all background thought processes completed and laid to rest, the endless stream of numbers and symbols wiped from her mental chalkboard. Then Roxy slid her tongue over Jillian's tongue, and Jillian stopped thinking in words.


	4. Chain-Gang Chainmail, I Don't Think At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~*~this is the chapter with the explicit sex scene~*~

Reality turned Day-Glo. Everything was a gaseous neon frequency vibrating at heat-death speeds and the stars were laser math sex fucking the galaxy into being. Bodies were loosely connected clouds of atoms, atoms were electromagnetic charges aligning in dynamic fractals, fractals were the same everywhere you looked and yet infinitely complex, everyone was part of a human fractal that encompassed the past and future. The universe was an ever-vibrating chord, and minds were music, and the music was really _good_. 

"Am I high?" Holtzmann yelled. Roxy's body was warm and solid against her. She held on for dear life. 

"No, you're just having a good time." Roxy was swaying against her, with her, back pressed to Holtzmann's chest. She tilted her head to one side. The strap of her tank top slid down her shoulder. Holtzmann walked her fingers up Roxy's arm and gently coaxed the strap back into place. Then, because she was 95% sure it was an invitation, she pressed her lips to the side of Roxy's neck. 

Roxy sighed, subsonic in soft skin, and threw her head back in pleasure. Her skull collided with Holtzmann's snout. 

"Gnh." Holtzmann staggered back, stunned. Her nose throbbed. 

"Aw, shit." Roxy pulled her to the side of the dance floor. "Did I hurt you?" 

"Ngh." Holtzmann prodded her nose. "No blood. No brain damage. All goo _owww_." 

"Not good. C'mere." Roxy took her hand and led her through a maze of bodies and light. 

She shoved aside a velvet curtain and sat Holtzmann down on a couch. "Stay. I'll be back." She disappeared through a more prosaic black door, revealing a sliver of white tile and fluorescent light. 

Holtzmann stayed. She watched luminous women mingle and merge. The wallpaper was maybe pink, definitely peeling; the couches were gilded, jewel-toned, shabby. Ornate mirrors hung on the walls, reflecting the layered and sinuous outlines of ghosts. How haunted was this place, anyway? Maybe restless souls came here to party. _Everybody's comin', leave your body at the door!_

Roxy returned with a handful of paper towels. "I don't think you're bleeding, but you can't be too careful around here." She knelt on the couch, straddling Holtzmann's lap, and dabbed at her nose. "Feeling okay?" 

"I'll live. I think." The pain ebbed quickly. 

"That's what I like to hear." Roxy took Holtzmann's face in her hands and kissed her. Her lips were even softer the second time, tongue velvety and warm in Jillian's open mouth. She slipped a hand between Jillian's legs. "I'm gonna make you forget I ever clonked you in the face." 

Jillian stretched her arms out along the back of the sofa and spread her legs as Roxy worked her hand between Jillian's thighs, grinding the heel of her hand against the faded denim of Jillian's crotch. Her fingers pressed against Jillian's cunt, as though she was trying to open her up through her jeans. Jillian rocked into Roxy's hand, pushing her hips forward, showing Roxy how much she wanted it. 

Roxy pressed a kiss to her neck, worked her way up Jillian's throat. She traced a path along Jillian's jawline with her tongue. "Hey." Her breath tickled the inside of Jillian's ear, made her squirm. "Bet I can make you cream your jeans." She returned to Jillian's neck, sucking and biting, tickling the sensitive spot with her tongue. There was going to be a huge bruise there tomorrow. Bite marks, too. Everyone would see. Abby and Patty would congratulate her, if they noticed. Erin would see too, she'd have to think about Holtzmann going out and finding a girl and getting _fucked_ \-- 

She sucked in a long, ragged breath. Her orgasm felt like a nuclear bomb, sudden and so hard it was almost painful, jerking her hips forward of their own accord into Roxy's palm. She was making an involuntary _uh uh uh_ noise and couldn't stop until Roxy took her hand away and she was trying to grind herself against thin air. 

"Wow," Roxy said. 

" _Hoooo_ boy. It's been a while." 

"That's a shame." Roxy put her hand back between Holtzmann's legs, rubbed with her thumb. "Round two?" 

" _Oohmygod_ yeah, I wouldn't mind, if you're up for it--" 

"You saved Manhattan. I think you deserve to come as many times as you want." Roxy kissed her again, hard and biting and wet and shameless. 

_Shit, am I that kind of person?_

"Huh?" Roxy muttered into her mouth. Her hand went to the zipper of Holtzmann's jeans. 

_The kind of person who leverages her fame to get laid. Is that me?_ Holtzmann felt her elation drop. 

"You have fans who want to fuck you. Don't get your panties in a twist about it." Roxy tugged Holtzmann's jeans down to her hips. "And if we stay here, everyone's gonna see me with my fingers in your pussy, and that is going to do _amazing_ things for my personal brand. If it makes you feel better." 

_Fans, multiple_ warred with _what's a personal brand?_ , while _getting fucked for as long as you want_ unexpectedly joined forces with _and everyone's going to see it_. 

"Well?" Roxy toyed with the waistband of Holtzmann's BVDs. "Ready to stop thinking about it?" She slid a hand into Jillian's underwear. Ethical concerns broke up and floated off, became small and distant before disappearing entirely. 

"Mmm. Yep. Over it." She was so _wet_. Roxy's fingers brushed aside damp curls of pubic hair and teased along her slit, searching out her clitoris and toying with the sensitive nub before slipping down to circle around the folds of her labia. 

The music leached into the anteroom as a trio of girls ducked through the velvet curtain. They were real, dimly lit and alive. Holtzmann knew she should push Roxy away, cover herself up and leave before they saw, before anyone came to punish her and throw her out. 

Jillian grinned lazily and threw her head back, low laughter bubbling out of her throat. 

_"Don't look now, but I think that's--"_  
_"Nooo way, what's she doing here?"_  
_"Nice. We get a show."_

"You want it bad, don't you?" Roxy pushed in an exploratory finger, searching out Jillian's sensitive spots. She curled a finger up, just behind Jillian's pubic bone. Roxy was hooked into her flesh, deeper inside her than anyone else had ever been. Her fingertip probed a spot that shot pulses of pleasure up Jillian's spine. Jillian shouted and thrust down onto Roxy's finger, panting as she shoved her hips against that bright, hot point. 

"You look real pretty taking it like that." Roxy worked in another finger. 

Jillian was stretched out, exposed and a little helpless, thighs wide open. She clutched at the plush fabric of the sofa, fingers flexing spasmodically. The pulses of pleasure were deeper, a slow throb that resounded through her veins. 

_"Fuck yeah. Get it, Roxy!"_  
_"I call next."_  
_"You can't, you're on probation."_

Roxy's thumb rubbed at her clit. "See? Fans." 

Jillian's fingers dug at the sofa. Her toes curled in her boots, and she kicked at the floor. "I can't--don't think it's going to--" 

"Yeah, you can. Don't worry," Roxy soothed. "We got all night." 

It was like being in a spaceship heading towards the sun, something bright and obliterating growing closer and closer without ever being in reach. She was going to burn up before she ever got there. Her muscles tensed and curled into knots. She couldn't possibly make it with all these eyes on her, couldn't come when they were _watching_ her get _fucked_ \-- 

Jillian wasn't even sure she was coming until it crashed over her, dragging her underwater where everything was bright and far away and she couldn't breathe. Deep, rolling waves reverberated through her body. She rode it out as long as she could, eking out aftershocks like points of fire until there was nothing left but a dull, satisfied burn. 

The world was hazy, and sound echoed in her ears without any meaning. She made a cursory attempt to get up, but her muscles were limp as noodles and she didn't really have the energy to go anywhere anyway. The universe ebbed out into a velvet blackness where the only sensation was the delicious ache of Roxy's mouth on her throat.


	5. Think I Just Got the Goodbye Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holtzmann fights a dream demon.

The world swam back to the surface of Holtzmann's consciousness. Her cheek was stuck to something tacky. It could only have been the leather sofa at Ghostbusters HQ, which was the only thing Holtzmann had ever seen that could be described with both meanings of the word. Who knew they made leather in tangerine? She peeled herself off the eye-searing sofa, pretty sure that her face bore the imprint of its pebbled texture. Slapping her cheek revealed that she had been drooling. Also, how did she even get home? Anterograde amnesia can't be good, but at least she wasn't _sans_ kidneys in a bathtub filled with ice in New Jersey. 

"You slept for eight whole hours," Abby commented. "I think that's a record for you. You usually max out around 4." 

Patty handed her a gigantic plastic cup of swamp water. "You look fucked up." 

"Bog juice, my favorite. Thank you." 

"I hope you like blue-green bacteria, because the guys at Pulp Mixin's put a lot of it in their hangover smoothie." 

"Cyanobacteria," Holtzmann croaked. "It's why we're all on fire on the inside." 

"No, baby girl, that would be whatever you drank last night." 

"Which was also green. So the evening has a pleasing symmetry." Holtzmann tried the smoothie. It tasted like coconut and beet juice. 

"Do you want to borrow my scarf?" Erin blurted out. 

"The 'New York Camo' Holtzmann doesn't come with scarf tie, but thanks." 

What happened between the couch and the other couch? She remembered shots of something green and surprisingly floral, the crush of warm bodies on the dance floor swaying along to "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"-- _don't let the sun blast your shadow, don't let the milk float ride your mind--_

Green claws appeared on Erin's shoulder, followed by stubby arms and a fat, angular face. 

"Don't panic, but...let me get that for you," Holtzmann said. 

"What?" Erin did not appear to be panicking, merely confused. She slapped herself in the chest. "Tell me there isn't a spider." 

"Specter, highly substantial. Looks like the type of monster that begins with a G. What is that?" 

"Goblin?" 

"Gremlin?" Abby sounded way too excited. 

"I don't see _anything_ ," Patty said, circling around Erin. "You sure it's not a pink elephant?" 

Erin looked horrified, and then annoyed. "You're going to tell me there's a gremlin on the wing, aren't you?" 

Abby grabbed the proton shotgun. 

"Please tell me you see it," Holtzmann said to her. 

"No, but just in case it's really there." Abby tossed it to her. It would have felt more badass to catch it in one hand if she had been sure that everyone else in the room agreed with her assessment of the threat level. Instead, she was just leveling a shotgun at an increasingly worried Erin for no apparent reason. 

She lowered the shotgun and snapped her fingers. "Gargoyle! It looks like a gargoyle. That was the word." The critter perched on Erin's shoulders. It was a stubby-limbed little thing with bat ears and a body shaped like an orangutan, like it had just stepped out of a medieval bestiary. 

"Please get it off me," Erin said through gritted teeth. "Whatever it is." 

Holtzmann leveled the shotgun. "Hold still, Joan. It's time for our William Tell act." 

Erin ducked and rolled as the proton beam hit the critter in the neck. It screamed wordlessly as it struggled, legs kicking against nothing, fingers clawing at the humming ringlets of light around its throat. 

"Damn, he's ugly," Patty remarked. "I'm getting the shredder." 

Erin pointed at the critter frantically from the floor. "I had a dream about that thing last night! It was sitting on my chest and trying to strangle me." 

"Wait, I want to keep this one." Abby slid a containment unit over to Holtzmann. "I don't have a ghost that can get into your dreams yet." 

"Abby, please do not keep Freddy Kreuger as an experimental subject." Erin shuddered and scooted backwards, towards the proton packs. 

"He looks like the monster from Fuseli's _The Nightmare_." Patty returned with the shredder. "This is just in case your 'keeping a dream demon as a pet' idea doesn't work out." 

The critter got its claws between two of the proton loops and started to pry them apart, gibbering and screeching in anger. 

"Erin, any time now," Holtzmann called. "This is _your_ demented dream-baby." 

"Got it." Erin crawled on her belly like a sniper and blasted the critter right in the face. "That'll teach you to mess with a Ghostbuster." 

The containment box snapped shut with a satisfying _chung_ as the critter's screams echoed into nothingness. 

"What I can't figure out," Patty said, "is how Holtzmann saw that thing and none of us did." 

"It was probably hangover powers," Holtzmann said. "It'll wear off once I finish my lawn clippings." 

The containment box rocked once. Everyone stared at it. 

"Shredder," Patty said. 

"Nuh-uh." Abby dove for the box. "Dream monster. Very unique. Not letting this one go." 

"I would feel a lot more comfortable with that thing dead," Erin said. "What if it gets out?" 

"It's not going to get out. These things are escape-proof." 

"They have been escape-proof _so far_." 

"Okay," Patty said quietly while Erin and Abby bickered over the ins and outs of ghost-keeping. "Seriously, how did you see that?" 

Holtzmann shrugged. "Sharp eyes, I guess." 

"I was looking right at it and I didn't see it until you got it with the proton gun." 

"Trick of the light?" 

"Look, if there's something weird going on and you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But if you've invented something that lets you see these things before they manifest, you know we need to know about it, right?" 

Holtzmann patted Patty on the shoulder. "Trust me, if I figured out ghost-vision goggles, I wouldn't shut up about it." 


End file.
